OUTH PORTLAND, Maine — Dr. Michael Ciampi took a step this spring that many of his fellow physicians would describe as radical.

The family physician stopped accepting all forms of health insurance. In early 2013, Ciampi sent a letter to his patients informing them that he would no longer accept any kind of health coverage, both private and government-sponsored. Given that he was now asking patients to pay for his services out of pocket, he posted his prices on the practice’s website.

The change took effect April 1.

“It’s been almost unanimous that patients have expressed understanding at why I’m doing what I’m doing, although I’ve had many people leave the practice because they want to be covered by insurance, which is understandable,” Ciampi said.

Before the switch, Ciampi had about 2,000 patients. He lost several hundred, he said. Some patients with health coverage, faced with having to seek reimbursement themselves rather than through his office, bristled at the paperwork burden.

But the decision to do away with insurance allows Ciampi to practice medicine the way he sees fit, he said. Insurance companies no longer dictate how much he charges. He can offer discounts to patients struggling with their medical bills. He can make house calls.

“I’m freed up to do what I think is right for the patients,” Ciampi said. “If I’m providing them a service that they value, they can pay me, and we cut the insurance out as the middleman and cut out a lot of the expense.”

He has lost a lot of business from people who want their insurance to pay the bill, but those who are prepared to pay for themselves are making significant savings.

Even with the loss of some patients, Ciampi expects his practice to perform just as well financially, if not better, than before he ditched insurance. The new approach will likely attract new patients who are self-employed, lack insurance or have high-deductible plans, he said, because Ciampi has slashed his prices.

“I’ve been able to cut my prices in half because my overhead will be so much less,” he said.

Before, Ciampi charged $160 for an office visit with an existing patient facing one or more complicated health problems. Now, he charges $75.

Patients with an earache or strep throat can spend $300 at their local hospital emergency room, or promptly get an appointment at his office and pay $50, he said.

It seems that the US insurance industry is paperwork heavy, which is leading to considerable paperwork – and processing paperwork cost money. By cutting out those overheads the practice is able to focus on it’s core business, and that means the patients are winning.

Contrast that with the previous government’s actions here – a massive increase in paperwork in order to deliver “cheaper” healthcare, which as we can see, really ends up costing more overall. Most of us would be better off had the government simply gotten rid of the cost overhead, let doctors charge the cost of medicine, and matched that with a tax cut. And Obamacare is going down the exact same road.

There’s an interesting postscript here from Instapundit, who is married to a psychologist:

Some of Helen’s psychologist friends have gone all-cash. They thought they’d lose business, but wound up with more patients, more money, and (much) less hassle.

I wonder how many patient’s care has been compromised over the years because government (and insurance) paperwork has distracted them from doing their real job?

It’s been less than a week since national gun control in America died. No “assault weapons” ban. No “high-capacity” magazine ban. Not even the Manchin-Toomey background check compromise that,according to Senator Mark Kirk, was reached by getting drunk on a 54-foot mega-yacht named Black Tie, which is part-owned by Manchin.

Over the last several days, I’ve watched Democratic politicians, lobbyists and Facebook meme-sharers calling down shame on the senators who voted against every single gun control measure proposed in the Senate. Yes, it’s true that none of the measures would have passed the Republican-controlled House anyway, but to have lost in the Democrat-controlled senate was to truly be trounced. I have seen the Democratic pundits all over the nation looking across their podiums and well-lit television studio desks with stunned expressions. “How could this have happened,” they all ask? Only four months after Newtown?

I write this letter as someone who is politically far left of center. You and I have a lot in common, though you may not want to admit it by the end of this article. I think it’s time we had a talk.

I live in the state of Virginia, a place where it’s not easy to be a leftist. Just last week, our State Board of Health voted to approve TRAP(Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) regulations that would close most abortion clinics in the state. It was a devastating loss for myself and other organizers, and it will be even more devastating to the women of Virginia, most of whom will not have access to safe, legal abortions for years to come. I mention this not only so that you have context for the sort of political work I’m involved in, but because I want you to know that *I do know*, from very recent experience, what it’s like to feel powerless as you watch a group of people vote for social policy that you think is absolutely insane.

But I’ll be honest with you: I watched the Senate votes live on Wednesday, and when these gun-related bills were defeated, I literally celebrated. Obviously, you and I have a lot in common, but plenty to differ on. And that’s kind of what I want to talk to you about.

I’ve owned guns since childhood, and it’s an issue that I’ve thought and written a lot about. It’s very difficult for me to communicate with the mainstream Democratic establishment about guns. But because I know how painful it sometimes is to listen to Republican and other Right-leaning people talk about things that we on the Left care strongly about, I thought I would try to help you out.

There are are a few things that you can do to improve your game in the gun control debate, and I thought it would only be fair to point out what they are. So here’s my best shot. Here are the things that you MUST keep in mind if you wish to further the dialogue on gun policy in America.

One of the major points is that many of the people who are trying to regulate guns are, to put it bluntly, ignorant. For example, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg:

This is a man that has built a cornerstone of his career on gun control legislation. He has headed and commissioned panels on guns. He runs a whole group of pro-gun-control mayors. This is an issue he has supposedly been devoted to for a long time.

He doesn’t know how guns operate. He doesn’t understand basic terminology. He doesn’t know what an “assault weapon” is, even though he supposedly was involved in drafting legislation. How is this possible?And how is it possible that we who actually understand the topic are supposed to cede to his judgment on it?

He’s not alone in his utter baffledness about this. Obama recently told donors at a Democratic Congressional Campaign committee meeting that students at Sandy Hook were gunned down by a “fully automatic weapon”.

(In case readers don’t wish to read the whole post, and don’t grasp the significance of that last one, the Sandy Hook shootings did not involve a fully automatic weapon, because these have been effectively banned for years and their use in crimes of any sort in the US is almost unheard of.)

How can you lobby and legislate for years on a topic, and yet be so utterly ignorant of the topic?

I don’t have the answer to that.

But we all know how such appalling, wanton ignorance goes down in communities where even a school child knows the difference; communities regularly portrayed by certain sectors as ignorant hicks.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of a quicker way to divide a country.

I’m inclined to discount this story somewhat (it just smells a bit too convenient), but there’s no denying that Obama has some curious priorities when it comes to whom he chooses to help.

A few days ago I received a call from a man I recently met named George. He was a bit flustered, and soon informed me that his young son was sick with a chest condition. He pleaded with me to send him $1,000 to cover the medical bills. Since George was at the hospital I asked him to let me speak to a nurse, and she confirmed that George’s son was indeed ill. So I agreed to send George the money through Western Union. He was profusely grateful. But before I hung up I asked George, “Why are you coming to me?” He said, “I have no one else to ask.” Then he said something that astounded me, “Dinesh, you are like a brother to me.”

Actually, George has a real life brother who just happens to be the president of the United States. (George Obama is the youngest of eight children sired by Barack Obama Sr.) George’s brother is a multimillionaire and the most powerful man in the world. Moreover, George’s brother has framed his re-election campaign around the “fair share” theme that we owe obligations to those who are less fortunate.

Then things get curious.

A couple of years ago, George teamed up with a British journalist Damien Lewis and the two of them published George’s story in a book called “Homeland.” Yet according to Lewis, shortly before the book’s publication in America, the publisher Simon & Schuster decided to shred the entire print run, more than 20,000 copies. Lewis tried unsuccessfully to get an explanation from Simon & Schuster but to no avail. He now suspects that the White House convinced Simon & Schuster that George’s story might prove embarrassing to the president.

In 2010, George also applied for a visa to come to the United States and was refused. While George confesses that in his younger years he was a delinquent, he has never been convicted of any crime. Moreover, he has a very good reason to visit the United States: his mother Jael Otieno lives in Atlanta. So why would the U. S. embassy in Nairobi refuse a tourist visa to the brother of the president who just wants to spend time with his mother?

My wife and I have been watching the John Adams mini series which I’d been recording. Sadly I missed the first episode.

Then I recalled something from some time ago… and sure enough, DPF had an old post on the series.

The seven part John Adams miniseries has won 13 Emmies, a record for a miniseries.

It is a compelling story of the first 50 years of the United States. Paul Gianatti did a powerful portrayal of John Adams, the first man to win and lose contested elections for President. The story of his friendship with Thomas Jefferson that turned to rivalvy and then loathing, before finally back to friendship is wonderfully told.

I hope a NZ broadcaster picks these up and shows them here.

That was over 2 years ago, and it still hasn’t made it here. I’ve been recording it on SBS through our cheapo satellite receiver.

It’s certainly well worth watching. I couldn’t comment on the historical accuracy, but it certainly has a very authentic appearance. In the last episode, John rips into the the artist who created the famous “signing of the declaration of independence” painting and muses that all the men depicted (himself and Jefferson excepted) were dead.

Anyway, a good series. One hopes that TVNZ or TV3 might bring it here sometime soon.

The big fuss is because the other day a violent woman was restrained by tea party supporters, and things got out of hand. I know this, because Andrew Breitbart immediatly condemned the violence via his twitter feed, which I follow. (Breitbart helpfully retweats his hate-tweats, with many people calling him names and one fellow by the name of @timothy_watson wishing he would drop dead. That guy’s a leftist – I checked.)

However there have been several incidents both before and after this incident where people attending tea party events have been attacked. While I’m at it, before the last election Gateway Pundit (along with a bus load of Republicans) was almost killed when a lefty threw a bag load of cement off a motorway overpass.

Yes, yes, I know that liberals would like to purvey the notion that tea partiers are violent and that incident fit their template, but:

1. One data point proves nothing about a large group (unless you follow the thinking style of bigotry).

2. The “violent Tea Party” meme has been pushed since the very beginning of the Tea Party movement, so it’s nothing new. And the failure to pick up enough data points to look anything like a pattern is glaringly obvious.

3. The MoveOn.org woman came to the event to create an incident and caused the Ron Paul’s supporters to worry about his safety, so that violent incident was prompted by the urge to defend, in which case even that one incident isn’t a data point that fits the gapingly empty template.

(Heh, someone in disguise holding a sign from the KKK trying to get to Obama would have a very short life expectancy indeed!)

As I’ve said time and time again, no one is claiming there are no idiots, racists, or violent people on the right. However, to claim that it’s only the right that has idiots is simply wrong and if anything, the boot is on the other foot. You don’t see the right rioting when the Democrats have their convention – you see the left rioting at the Republican and Democratic party conventions.

Do those on the left really believe their vacuous rhetoric that those who are not on the left hate the poor, want them to suffer and (in the case of Toynbee’s vile but carefully chosen words) want them exterminated?

As much as I oppose the welfare state it is not motivated by hatred or disinterest in those who are worse off than myself. Even the trimming of the welfare state being implemented in the UK (largely about those who are on higher incomes claiming benefits and those claiming more than the average wage in total benefits) are seen as being a “savage attack” on the poor.

The left does not have a monopoly on compassion, indeed the speed and voracity at which it turns on those who dare to disagree with its solutions shows how shallow that “compassion” actually is. How many on the left talk of dancing on Margaret Thatcher’s grave, how many on the right talk the same about Tony Benn, George Galloway or Arthur Scargill?

Do those on the left really believe their vacuous rhetoric that those who are not on the left hate the poor, want them to suffer and (in the case of Toynbee’s vile but carefully chosen words) want them exterminated?

As much as I oppose the welfare state it is not motivated by hatred or disinterest in those who are worse off than myself. Even the trimming of the welfare state being implemented in the UK (largely about those who are on higher incomes claiming benefits and those claiming more than the average wage in total benefits) are seen as being a “savage attack” on the poor.

The left does not have a monopoly on compassion, indeed the speed and voracity at which it turns on those who dare to disagree with its solutions shows how shallow that “compassion” actually is. How many on the left talk of dancing on Margaret Thatcher’s grave, how many on the right talk the same about Tony Benn, George Galloway or Arthur Scargill?

Aaron Worthing at Patterico pulls some of the sillier aspects of the anti-Proposition 8 brief. (That’s the side that wants gay marriage)

Shockingly, much of it is complete nonsense. I mean, a liberal cause relying on emotion not facts – what are the chances?

So do they? Well, here once again they assure us that this has been decided:

Indeed, the California Supreme Court has authoritatively determined that initiative proponents lack standing to represent the State’s interests and are “in a position no different from that of any other member of the public.” In re Marriage Cases, 183 P.3d 384, 406 (Cal. 2008).

Oh, they decided it already. Well, then I guess we should just give up then and… oh wait a minute, they didn’t. If you find the quote in In re Marriage Cases, you find that they are not talking about the proponents, but a fund. And if you investigate the lower court case it comes from, the fund they billed itself not a the proponents of the measure but merely voters, stating the fund “represents over 15,000 residents and taxpayers of California who supported and continue to support Proposition 22[.]“ They weren’t the official proponents, they were just voters and supporters. So in fact this decision doesn’t actually bear on the issue at all.

Another example of the silliness of the anti-prop-8 brief comes when Olson and company complain that proponents have “[c]it[ed] a slew of dictionaries and articles … written by authors who never testified at trial[.]” Well, if one turned to Federal Rule of Evidence 803, involving exceptions to the hearsay rule you find both “statements of ancient documents” and “learned treatises” which can be considered exceptions to the rule against hearsay. Further, those specific rules say that the availability of the declarant is immaterial—as in, it doesn’t even matter if the author is ready, willing and able to testify, you are still not required to call the author of such documents in to testify in order to present it as evidence. So they are complaining the proponents doing what the rules allow.

Read the whole thing. Aaron points out that in theory, (and jest) acording to the breif, it’s currently as legal to kill gays in Calfornia as it is to kill the unborn.

Of course, they make sure to have a strong regulatory environment, supported unions, made sure the state had a good income from increased taxes, and generally made things hostile for businesses. Oh wait, that’s California.

Less spending means lower taxes. Texas doesn’t have an income tax — in contrast to California’s highly progressive income tax — and it is among the 10 lowest-tax states in the country. Its regulatory burden is low across the board, and it’s a right-to-work state that enacted significant tort reform in the middle of the last decade.

It is true that Texas enjoys bountiful oil and natural-gas reserves, but its attitude toward those resources is what’s most important — “if you got ’em, use ’em.”

Our attitude is “if you’ve got it and there’s trees on top, leave it alone”.

There is a much bigger issue here. The New Zealand economy is a crock. We haven’t paid our own way in the world – by that I mean earned more than we spent – since 1973. Our leaders talk optimistically about catching up with other OECD countries, notably Australia, but we’re steadily slipping further behind. Yet we continue to live as if in a fantasy world where we can afford to pamper ourselves with every self-indulgent excess that the consumerist economy dangles in front of us.

We consider it our right to enjoy a standard of living that our parents would never have dared dream of (even though, paradoxically, the country was far more wealthy in their time than it is now). We want to dine in the trendiest restaurants, drink the finest wines, holiday in the most exotic locations and live in the most lavish homes, but we don’t want to vex ourselves wondering whether the economy is prosperous enough to sustain this lifestyle.

It’s a crying shame that we chose to make money from people looking at the trees, rather than making money from the resources under the trees, while also making money from people looking at how we managed to do both without compromising either.

Found this on the internet. I suspect it was written several years ago, but it certainly strikes a chord now!

Especially like 12 & 14 🙂

—————————————————

A Message from John Cleese:

To the citizens of the United States of America:

In light of your failure in recent years to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.
Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy). Your new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown David Cameron, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

You should look up “revocation” in the Oxford English Dictionary.

1. Then look up aluminium, and nuclear, and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing them.

2. The letter ‘U’ will be reinstated in words such as ‘colour’, ‘favour’ and ‘neighbour.’ Likewise, you will learn to spell ‘doughnut’ without skipping half the letters, and the suffix ‘-ize’ will be replaced by the suffix ‘-ise’. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up ‘vocabulary’ ).

3. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as “like” and “you know” is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as US English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter ‘u’ and the elimination of -ize.

4. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

5. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you’re not adult enough to be independent.

Guns should only be handled by adults. If you’re not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you’re not grown up enough to handle a gun.

6. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

7. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

8. The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline)-roughly $6/US gallon. Get used to it.

9. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

10. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. South African beer is also acceptable as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting Nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of British Commonwealth – see what it did for them. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat’s Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

11. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one’s ears removed with a cheese grater.

12. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full Kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies). In the meantime don’t try rugby – the South Africans and Kiwis will thrash you, like they regularly thrash us.

13. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.

14. You must tell us who killed JFK. It’s been driving us mad.

15. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty’s Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).

16. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 pm with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.

I doubt Miss Oklahoma’s position had much to do with her second place, but I do wonder what excuses the pageant will come up with as to why they shouldn’t remove the winner since they worked so hard to put a politically correct face on the winners podium. It would be an incredibly bad look to have her removed.

I’m reminded again of the story of Jackie Robinson. When looking for the first black player to play in the “white” leagues, it was as important to find a man of character as it was to find a good player. Grabbing the best minority candidate without considering carefully if they really are the best can do more harm than it does good.

A few months ago, a man by the name of James von Brunn attacked the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. In spite of a whole list of beliefs consistent with extreme left-wing politics, he was put down as evidence of growing “right wing” terror threat.

NewsBusters highlights yet another instance of the US media putting a violent crazy person in the “right wing” category when clearly they’re spouting communist nonsense too.

To add a hint of balance, Graham chose this point to admit that Stack also held anti-capitalist beliefs…in a quick reference comprising all of 48 words:

But he also takes traditionally left-wing swipes at corporations for keeping the little guy down, and signs off, “The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.”

Did Graham express concern about other left-wing criminals, such as Alabama professor Amy Bishop?

Nope.

Having taken care of that little detail, Graham returned to his worry over conservatives and brought in an expert from – wait for it – the Southern Poverty Law Center:

Groups that track extreme right-wing violence say they see a definitive spike in activity. “This attack comes in the context of an absolute explosion in militias and the larger antigovernment ‘patriot’ movements in the last 12 to 18 months,” says Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center. “This has been driven initially by nonwhite immigration for the last 10 years, which is reflected in the person of Barack Obama, which represents a very real and irreversible demographic change. Second, the economy has played a role. Unemployment has stayed high. There’s a huge amount of anger about bonuses for bankers, at the same time that most middle-class and working-class Americans don’t see things getting better, and in fact getting worse.”

NBers might recognize the name Mark Potok. He’s the same guy who appeared on MSNBC’s Chris Matthews show that same day to call Stack a radical conservative, which NewsBusters documented. SPLC has a long history of partisan accusations against the right while not being too keen on tracking left-wing violence.

…

Did Newsweek think to ask any conservatives what they had to say about this? Not at all. Graham’s piece didn’t offer one single shred of attempting to defend anti-tax sentiment, didn’t provide prospective from anyone on the right, and didn’t bother admitting far-left kooks can be equally dangerous.

By contrast, when Amy Bishop killed three people at the University of Alabama, Newsweek wasn’t interested in learning about her politics. In fact, Newsweek writer Kate Dailey covered that shooting by blaming it on guns. And when Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan killed fellow soldiers in Fort Hood, Newsweek blamed it on the military.

About this Blog

This Blog is the long time home of a blogger known across the internet as ScrubOne (That's Scrub One not Scru Bone). Where this handle has not been available, he is known as ScrubOneHD (HD for Half Done).

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ScrubOne confesses to the Christian faith, and conservative politics but does not necessarily blog according to public perception of either.

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